It was a story with an emotional tug from the start, one teenager recovering from a serious gunshot.

Daytona Beach teen's sentencing goes viral

It was a story with an emotional tug from the start, one teenager recovering from a serious gunshot wound and another facing a 20-year prison sentence.

 But the video and story of the convicted 18-year-old and her mother wailing in a courtroom Tuesday quickly drew the most page views and social interactions of any in The News-Journal’s history.

Within minutes after a link to the story about Ky’Andrea Cook’s sentencing was posted on the newspaper's Facebook page Tuesday afternoon, the views, reactions and comments began rolling in. By nightfall, it was apparent the story would outperform any other.

By 10 a.m. Wednesday, the Facebook post alone had 1.7 million reactions. In less than 19 hours, the story had drawn the second-most views of any story ever posted on the website.

By 4 p.m., the reactions had doubled, with 1.2 million views and 18,500 shares. The post also had evoked more than 5,000 comments, ranging across the spectrum of human emotions, mentioning race, gender, age and fairness.

It was a story that almost wasn't reported.

Capturing the raw reactions of hearts breaking in Circuit Judge Matthew Foxman's courtroom was in part the luck of timing and in part the quick reaction of experienced journalists.

Chief photographer Jim Tiller and staff writer Casmira Harrison were sitting in Foxman’s courtroom Tuesday for an unrelated case. 

They sat listening as Cook, a Mainland High School student, faced the judge for her role in setting up a carjacking that resulted in the shooting of another teenager.

Investigators said Cook lured Perry Nida, a 27-year-old Palm Coast man, to a meeting in South Daytona in March, where he expected to sell her some marijuana and have sex with her.

 Nida brought Immanuel Pursel, 17, from Palm Coast. The trio met and traveled to another location, where Cook's boyfriend waited to rob the Palm Coast men, according to the State Attorney's office.

 The boyfriend has not yet been charged, but an assistant state attorney said in court he got into the car and pulled a gun on Nida.

 As Pursel pushed him out of the car, the masked boyfriend turned and fired twice. Purcel was badly wounded.

Tiller and Harrison watched and listened with interest as the young defendant stood in handcuffs while the mother of the teenage shooting victim, Vickie Arends, addressed the judge.

Arends testified her son was shot just because he needed a ride to work at Steak 'n Shake in Palm Coast. 

As she described how the bullet hit her son's stomach, went through his intestines and liver and lodged in his pelvic area, Harrison began taking notes in earnest.

As Foxman began to read his sentence, Tiller turned his camera to the scene.

"I was touched by her age, her demeanor and the seriousness of the crime," said Tiller.

Foxman, noting Cook's involvement in two "orchestrated" carjackings, handed down his verdict: guilty, 20 years for a carjacking charge, 15 years for attempted carjacking and 15 years for felony battery – all principal to the crime with a deadly weapon and all to run concurrently.

As Foxman began to read, Cook's mother, Lashawnda Lattrell Ponder, cried out from her seat. Cook, who stood stoic moments before, lost her composure and began to cry.

Tiller's video captured some of the key elements that quickly draw audiences in today's digital world, said Al Tompkins, a senior faculty member at the Poynter Institute, a non-profit journalism education organization in St. Petersburg.

"It's compelling," said Tompkins, who specializes in online and broadcast journalism.

"There are a number of ingredients that go into this brew of what we think of as viral," he said. 

One is timing, including what else is happening in the world. 

Another is whether the story or video is easy to understand. And, if a video can be watched silently, it gathers additional traffic.

The raw emotion on the faces of Cook and her mother are easily read without sound, he said.

Viral posts also tend to be short things that are easy for someone to understand and form an opinion about and things that someone can "look at it and go wow," Tompkins said.

The video of Cook and her mother is both, he said. "A child demonstrably crying and her parent's reaction."

People might share the post for many reasons, he said. "People are going to filter this through their own experience."

Readers responded in record numbers for The News-Journal's social media sites.

The comments covered the gamut, including sentencing guidelines and the role a community and family should play in educating youth. 

Many expressed outrage, saying the sentence was too harsh and alleged it was racially biased.

 Yashandra Morris wrote that she knew Cook and her family.

"She made a bad choice but 20 years is a lot," Morris wrote on Facebook. "You have people out here who rape babies and get probation. Kill people in a DUI get 6 months."

 "I don't think the punishment is too harsh if the victim was my child I would want more or the same," wrote Kema Joyner-Kirk. 

But she was among many who also said she felt the sentence was biased.

Thanks for reading.